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The Bastion
The Bastion loves to style themselves as the occult lords of Old Manila and a dominant force in inter-cabal politics, but in truth, their glory is faded, and their position is far more precarious than it might appear. The Bastion may well be one of the oldest of Manila’s mage cabals, tracing its lineage to the days of the Spanish colonization of the islands, its founders literally rowing to the shores of the Kingdom of Tondo along with de Legazpi and the conquistadors. Dominated by the thearchs and mystagogues, the Bastion incorporated mystical designs and arcane principles into the design of the walled city of Intramuros and obtained a stranglehold on Old Manila's places of power. It considers the safeguarding of old Manila’s places of power and the supernatural landscape as its prime focus. The Bastion once wielded significant political and arcane power, but the end of Spanish rule, and more importantly, the devastation caused by the Liberation of Manila broke their choke hold on Manila's occult landscape, damaging or destroying Hallows, unleashing bound horrors, and scattering collections of artifacts and lore. 70 years after the destruction of the old city at the end of World War 2, the Bastion has only barely held on to relevance, buoyed by astute political leadership and control of a mystagogue Athaneum hidden in the vaults of the National Museum. The arcane fallout from the sack of Manila still haunts the Bastion to this day, and the cabal's troubleshooters are kept busy seeking or providing assistance when a bound horror, ghost, or artifact once under the Bastion's protection causes trouble within the metropolis. This arcane outreach has earned them allies, but many also whisper that this wouldn't have happened had the Bastion been doing its job properly safeguarding Manila's arcane secrets during the Japanese occupation. The Bastion takes as its arcane inspiration the Walled City of Intramuros, the center of Spanish power during the colonial era, and previous members of the Bastion were instrumental in the creation of the Intramuros Administration. Shadow Names often have an architectural or construction motif. Known Territories: Intramuros, the National Museum Membership: Primarily Silver Ladder and Mysterium. Internal Conflicts: Silver Ladder members of the Bastion are focused on reestablishing practical power and primacy of the cabal, while Mysterium members are more concerned with securing relics and magical power with which they can bring Manila back to heel. External Enemies: Mages and cabals affiliated with the Guardians of the Veil do not look kindly on the Bastion. In their eyes, the cabal's complacency and failures of stewardship are responsible for many of modern Manila's supernatural problems. The Free Council also tends to view the Bastion with distaste, regarding them as nostalgic has-beens and old guards who need to be swept away. In addition, Bastion's moves to protect legacy structures and heritage landmarks have been consistently undermined by aggressive urban development. While this could be a matter of simple economics, more paranoid members of the cabal point to a greater pattern at work in the reworking of the city's landscape by Mammonites or other servants of the Exarchs.